Qatari Wedding

Last Friday, June 24th, I went to a Qatari nationals wedding, and it was a great experience. The wedding takes place in tents in the desert or on empty land towards the outskirts of the town. There are two different celebrations, the one in the tents is attended by the men and groom, and then at the hotel the women and the bride have a celebration. The two different parties never celebrate together and there is no formal walking of the bride down the aisle or any of the aspects that are considered traditional in a Western wedding. After the men celebrate for a few hours it is common for the groom and all of his close friends to go to the hotel. Once outside of the hotelthe friends of the groom watch the groom as he walks alone into the hotel where he then meets his bride and at that point they are officially married and their marriage begins.

So now that I mentioned what a traditional wedding in Qatar is like I want to talk about my experience at the wedding. It was amazing while we were pulling up to the wedding, because most of the cars parked outside were Porsche's and Land Rovers, all parked in the sand in the outskirts of Doha, I don't know why  I didn't think to get a picture of it. Once we entered the tents it looked nothing like a tent on the inside. The floors were covered in Persian rugs, the air was a nice moderate temperature, tapestries hung from the walls, and beautiful chairs lined the entirety of the walls. The whole time was full of conversation, normally there is sword dancing at the weddings from what I hear, but unfortunately the grooms grandfather had passed away a few weeks prior so he didn't have the normal allotment of time to set up his wedding.

While we were sitting in the seats and having conversations, men would come by serving Arabic coffee, tea, and treats. I learned after a while that if you simply hand your cup back to the gentleman he will pour you more tea, what you have to do is if you are finished shake the cup before handing it to him, which signifies you don't want anymore. Everyone was extremely friendly and talkative, and the most common question was how do I enjoy the weather with a little laugh following the question, they were very laid back and friendly conversation, I loved it.

 After a while of conversation, we were all moved to a separate room where dinner was being served. Dinner was served family style, with a huge plate of lamb, eggs, and rice being put done on the middle of each table. You ate it by pulling a piece of meat off of the bone with your hand, then grabbing some rice with your hand, followed by squeezing it all together in the palm of your hand, and lastly pushing it to the tip of your fingers to eat. No forks, spoons, knives, or plates were used. One of the Qatari nationals told me that it is actually healthier to eat it with your hands, because the salt on your hand from your sweat kills any potential bacteria in the meat. They also told me

 that usually no tables are used and instead everyone sits in circles and eats together, it was a great experience. Once we were all finished eating something quite interesting occurred. Before entering the tent at the beginning of the evening I noticed that there were a lot of non-nationals sitting in chairs outside of the wedding tents and not interacting with anyone else at the wedding, I found it slightly curious but shortly forgot about it after entering the tents. It turns out that the nationals invite the poor of the country in to eat with them during the dinners at weddings. So once we began finishing our dinner, I noticed a lot of immigrants entering the tent, and

 began sitting and eating the food. I was told the reason for this is it is a night of celebration so everyone deserves to eat well including the poor. It was an amazing gesture of kindness and something I didn't expect to occur. It would be the equivalent of a fairly wealthy family in the US inviting the homeless in to eat with them during their wedding reception, something I imagine never occurs, where here this occurs at most or all of the weddings.
After dinner we all returned to the larger main tent, and were served more tea, coffee, and deserts. I talked to a national who was telling me about his road trip from Qatar to Egypt which is a journey I wouldn't

 mind embarking on someday! A little after this there was a professional poet who was telling the family history of the groom in poetic form. I unfortunately couldn't understand since it was in Arabic. After this family members of the groom gave speeches and remarks about the groom, which was followed by laughs and claps from the crowd. This was more or less the end of the night, shortly after the speeches the grooms cousin drove up in an extremely expensive black and gold Porsche and zoomed him away to the hotel to be with his new wife. It was an extremely amazing experience and I'm glad I went!

                                                       Random Photos of the Wedding

                                                         

Another week another post

       It has been about a week so I figured I'd update this blog. I always have so much to say on here until I actually come to write and then I forget what I want to talk about. To start though I'm going to show a few pictures of the downtown skyline, which I said I was going to do about a week ago, but never ended up doing it!

         This is called Aspire Tower, and is the tallest building in Doha, Qatar. The Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, built it for the 2006 Asian games (very similar to the Olympics, but only Asian nations participate), which Qatar hosted. It was built to be the focal point for these games during which a large flame came out of the top continuously for the entirety of the games. I haven't personally seen the flame lit on the top, but from what I hear it is lit during important Qatari holidays. The tower is 984 feet tall, in comparison the Transamerica building in San Francisco (the one with the pyramid top) is only 850 feet tall. This means that the Aspire tower would be the tallest building in San Francisco, and second tallest in the entire state of California, and the Emir built it solely for the Asian games. This shows the amount of wealth and power the Emir has, being capable of building such a massive structure to serve as the focal point of an event that lasts a mere 15 days. The nation as a whole is actually quite wealthy as the average GDP per capita in Qatar is 91,379 dollars according to the world bank, which is the highest of any nation in the world. That means the average Qatari national is making 91,379 dollars, in comparison the average American citizen makes 45,989 dollars per year, the average British citizen 36,496, and the average Chinese citizen makes 6,828 dollars per year. It is amazing the wealth the people of Qatar have. This is why they have modernized their society so quickly. Fifteen years ago there wasn't a single skyscraper in the nation, now the country is full of them and you see cranes all over downtown building more it is quite amazing how quickly they have put this altogether!
         The city center of Doha is a fascinating place, on one side of the downtown area there is a desert as this picture kind of shows. On the other side of the city center is the Persian gulf. With all of the buildings being less than two decades old the whole downtown has a very futuristic look to it. It is an interesting part of the town because it mixes the Western idea of skyscrapers with the traditional aspects of the region, which creates a very distinct look and culture.

        This is a building that I wanted to spend a minute talking about as it fits the description of what I was just mentioning about taking a western idea, and making it into a distinct look that fits the culture. When first looking at this building it quite obviously has a different style to its architecture but there is a reason this building is designed this way. In Qatar the hawk plays an important role in the life of the people in this area. For generations hunting has been a very popular sport to the inhabitants of the peninsula that makes up the nation of Qatar, and here people hunt by using hawks. In traditional Qatari families hawks are passed down from parents to children. This means after many generations hawks being passed down from generation to generation became more than just about sports, and more about familial tradition. It has become such an important part of

Qatar that the hawk now has its portrait on the 500 Qatari Riyal, which is the highest denomination of currency in the country. The photo to the left is a birdhouse. You can find these throughout the city and what they are, are houses for wild birds which can come and go as they please. The most common birds to find in these houses are pigeons and hawks. The birdhouse looks very similar to the skyscraper above, which was designed to look like a traditional Qatari birdhouse.
    Beyond that my week has been pretty interesting. It has still been hot averaging about 110 degrees everyday. While I was taking the photos of the downtown area it was so hot that I actually got a sunburn while wearing a shirt! On Wednesday I went down to one of the local colleges and sat in on two of the classes, which was interesting to see the differences and similarities in regards to how a course would be taught and handled in Qatar in comparison to the US.

     I also rode a camel out in the desert for the first time this week. Riding camels out there made me feel like I should be in Indiana Jones or something haha. It was a fun experience, and being out there while the wind was whipping the sand around helped me to appreciate why the men in the region traditionally wear Keffiyehs.
         I think that is about all I have to say for now. I've been going down to the Souq quite frequently and swimming in the gulf on occasion, and I'm sure I'm forgetting other things, but I can't think of them right now. As far as the future goes I might be going to a traditional Qatari wedding next week, which takes place in tents in the desert. It should be a great experience if I get to go, and I'll keep you all posted if I do. Below I'll put some random photos up like I did last week.

Salam everyone!!
                                           Random Photos

Favorite building

  

A few days in

       I decided I should post on here since I've now been here for a couple of days. The flight over here was okay, I had a lay over in Amsterdam for four hours. It was nice being back in Europe, even if it was only the airport, since it made me think back to my backpacking trip I made through Europe a couple of summers ago. When we boarded the plane to go from Amsterdam to Dammam in Saudi Arabia one of the hydraulic coolers in the engine blew out and you could actually smell it in the cabin of the plane. This caused a two and a half hour delay where we had to stay in the plane the whole time.
       Qatar has been amazing. The weather has been crazy it has been around 115 both days I have been here and in the high 90's both nights. This causes a very interesting dynamic in the city where in the day time no one is out, but then at night everyone comes out once the heat has lightened. The first night I was here I went down to one of the local souqs, which is a market but also has dining and coffee/tea shops.

    These are some pictures of the souq. You can buy everything from dyed bunny rabbits, to hand made instruments, to luggage in the souq. There was also a lot of live music.
      Today I went to the Saudi side of the peninsula and swam all day in the Persian Gulf. The water was the warmest I've ever swam in warmer than Hawaii, Florida or Greece. Hopefully within the next few days I'll head down to the city center and get some pictures of the skyline as the buildings here look nothing like the skyscrapers in the U.S.
      Beyond that there are a few interesting things I have noticed since I got to Qatar. One of them is out

of the 1.7 million people who live here less than 300,000 of them are citizens, everyone else is of foreign decent. Also Mosques have to be close enough together to guarantee that every person in the country is capable of hearing the prayers that occur 5 times everyday. The first prayer is called Fajr and today occurred at 3:13 in the morning. From my understanding this is the most important prayer of the day because in the Islam faith god says this is the time when all others are sleeping. This makes it the most essential and obligatory prayer out of the five to practice at a local mosque for someone of Muslim faith. The second prayer is called Dhuhr and today
                                                                                    occured at 11:34. The next three are Asr, Maghrib,

                    and Isha occurring at 2:57, 6:24, and 7:54 respectively. Together these 5 prayers form one of the 5 pillars of Islam. The prayers are interesting to hear because as mentioned earlier you can hear them anywhere you are in the city. When I was coming back from the beach I was listening to the radio, and even in the car all the radio stations stop at the 5 moments of worship, and the music is replaced by prayers. A prayer also came on while I was at the souq and everyone stopped and prayed while the prayer was occurring and then right after everyone continued on with whatever they were doing. It was kind of similar to how everyone stops what they are doing during the National Anthem at a baseball game.
I think that is all I have to say for now, but I am planning on heading into the U.A.E. and Oman hopefully within the next couple of weeks. I'll keep this updated, and hopefully tomorrow will add some cool pictures of the skyline. Below the photos of the souq I'll add some other random photos of Qatar. If anyone knows how I can make them in columns instead of a single line let me know!! :)

Random Photos of Qatar